SoCal grocery founder guilty in racketeering trial

LOS ANGELES - LOS ANGELES (AP) - The founder of a Southern California grocery chain who appeared to be an up-by-the-bootstraps success story was convicted Monday in a federal racketeering case involving solicitation of murder, bribery and many other crimes.

A jury convicted Numero Uno stores owner George Torres of 55 felony counts including racketeering, "honest services" mail fraud and wire fraud, conspiring to harbor illegal immigrants and tax charges. The jury also found that Torres solicited the 1994 murder of a gang member who demanded a "tax" from a Numero Uno market. He was acquitted of one wire fraud count.

The U.S. attorney's office said Torres, of suburban Arcadia, could be sentenced to as much as life in prison.

Torres' 11 stores are in some of the region's poorest neighborhoods. Prosecutors said the chain was run for years like a criminal enterprise.

Torres, his older brother, Manuel, and two others, were indicted in 2007 after an 18-month federal investigation.

Charges against his Manuel Torres were recently dropped when the judge ruled prosecutors didn't have enough evidence.

Born in Tijuana, Mexico, George Torres appeared to embody the American dream with his successful chain of 11 Numero Uno supermarkets that he built out of his father's produce route. He won widespread praise for bringing fresh food to neighborhoods typically avoided by large supermarket chains.

But federal prosecutors said much of his success was due to strong-arm tactics and illegal doings.

The government said he bribed public officials to help him get liquor licenses, staffed his stores with illegal immigrants, evaded taxes, shook down shoplifters in exchange for not reporting them to police, and traded in stolen meat and produce.

In the indictment, George Torres was accused of involvement in two additional murder solicitations. The jury found he was not involved in one of those cases and the judge ruled out the other allegation and did not let it go to the jury.

Defense attorney Steve Madison maintained that prosecutors' evidence was weak, saying that out of the 125,000 phone calls monitored, there was not a single reference to murder.

Madison claimed that a detective early on zeroed in on his client as a suspect, ignoring other potential leads, and prosecutors made generous deals with jailhouse informants in return for their testimony.

Two former Los Angeles city officials Steve Carmona and George Luk are expected to stand trial later this year on racketeering conspiracy and mail and wire fraud charges in connection with George Torres' application for a liquor license.

Prosecutors allege that Carmona received Lakers tickets worth $1,100 and a GMC pickup truck registered to George Torres' son. Luk, while also member of the Los Angeles Central Area Planning Commission, allegedly also lobbied colleagues to approve a liquor license. The commission declined to give Torres the permit.